Paraded up a boulevard of plane trees and umbrella pines
from the Quai Jean Jaures, by the break-neck jetty
where a headless saint with his cock and dog
sailed in from Pisa in 66, six young mothers
and a homosexual man sweat Paul's passion
through Rue Misericorde, up the grassy knoll
to the hexagonal dungeon of the citadel.
Swastikas of ash are fingered on their foreheads
above shaved scalps and tattooed knees--
a girl of twelve holds a blue-eyed child
in her arms, can't even say, like others, she hadn't
wanted to be sleeping with the enemy.
Already the old Greek port has been mined by night,
sacked by the shock troops beached at Pampelonne,
already the Saracens are returning--the naked
bathers, Colette, Cocteau, Brigitte Bardot who lives
for the green parakeets in limp-petaled rock rose,
the cork oaks and convolvulus. But Vichy's
usurpation of the role of Joan of Arc will never be
forgotten, will nor the ones who were burned at the stake
for the sake of those who stayed silent, or resisted.

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